Although the economy has been in a recovery phase for a while now, the national housing market is only recently showing signs of new life.

Texas was spared the worst of the downturn, with a smaller price bubble and oversupply and, thus, a faster return to “normal.” In some areas of the United States, however, there is still a long way to go to reach a healthy state in the residential real estate market (and prior peaks may not be surpassed for decades, if ever).

When the housing downturn began, the level of homeownership had reached almost 70 percent nationwide. After World War II, lower-priced developments and higher income levels led to increasing homeownership. In addition, the size of houses expanded. In 1973, the average single-family home was 1,525 square feet, compared to 2,248 square feet in 2006.

The total market value of all U.S. homes more than doubled between 1999 and the peak in 2006/2007, with prices for individual homes up an average of about 50 percent. The jump in value was uneven, with the East and West coasts generally rising more than the center of the nation. For some metropolitan areas, prices more than doubled.

In Texas, prices rose by far less (closer to 25 percent in Houston, for example). We may have lamented that fact in the early 2000s as we watched the huge profits some lucky sellers were realizing in “hot” markets such as Las Vegas, but our lack of a big run-up in prices protected us from much of the damaging fallout when the bubble burst. Texas markets have almost recovered lost ground and are likely to continue to improve as the state economy and population grow.

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